[Discussion] What would you do?

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, hammertime said:

I don't think we should buy out OEL this year. I would rather them clear cap other ways Brock Boeser, Tyler Myers. There is still a chance OEL"s foot heals up and he can skate again at a high level. Also if it doesn't I feel like that would be grounds for him to fail his physical and be put on LTIR. 
 

If we give him another season not only does his buyout end a year earlier but saves a lil over 4m cap. I don't think we are a contender next year I think this team needs to show that they are ready to take that step before you take the poison pill. 

 

It’s a risk to keep him. We could easily end up with OEL not being injured but just continuing to be so bad he sits in the press box eating 7.2 off our cap in popcorn. 

[hammertime]

1 minute ago, Alflives said:

It’s a risk to keep him. We could easily end up with OEL not being injured but just continuing to be so bad he sits in the press box eating 7.2 off our cap in popcorn. 

Minni has 16m dead cap and are in a playoff spot. 

[Alflives]

4 minutes ago, hammertime said:

Minni has 16m dead cap and are in a playoff spot. 

Yup. Look at how much better we are defensively without OEL. Even Chaos Giraffe is better now not partnered with OEL. 
of course it’s best for us if OEL would train hard and come to camp in fabulous shape and ready to compete. Just don’t know if he will. The for sure thing is 7 mil in cap space next year if we buy him out this summer. 

[BigTramFan]

26 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Yup. Look at how much better we are defensively without OEL. Even Chaos Giraffe is better now not partnered with OEL. 
of course it’s best for us if OEL would train hard and come to camp in fabulous shape and ready to compete. Just don’t know if he will. The for sure thing is 7 mil in cap space next year if we buy him out this summer. 

Management will have a lot more insight and information regarding OEL and what has been impacting his performance this season. If they buy him out I believe that they will had enough knowledge to know that he couldn't handle playing 2nd pairing on a contender. If they don't buy him out, they believe he will bounce back from his injuries. Tocchet's recent comments on OEL suggest the latter, but we will see...

[Alflives]

4 minutes ago, BigTramFan said:

Management will have a lot more insight and information regarding OEL and what has been impacting his performance this season. If they buy him out I believe that they will had enough knowledge to know that he couldn't handle playing 2nd pairing on a contender. If they don't buy him out, they believe he will bounce back from his injuries. Tocchet's recent comments on OEL suggest the latter, but we will see...

If we don’t buyout OEL it might be because our owner refuses to write the cheque. We will never know that though. Management would simply say they are expecting OEL to return to form after a summer of training. 

[BigTramFan]

15 minutes ago, Alflives said:

If we don’t buyout OEL it might be because our owner refuses to write the cheque. We will never know that though. Management would simply say they are expecting OEL to return to form after a summer of training. 

The contract is in place, so the salary pay cheques are already committed. It's just a choice as to how much you wanna pay.

 

If you don't buyout OEL you are paying:

 

$9.24m in 2023-24

$7.04m in 2024-25

$4.62m in 2025-26

$4.62m in 2026-27

(Total of $25.52m)

 

or if you buyout:

 

$2.13m for 8 years ($17m total)

 

I'd say the latter is much more palatable in terms of actual cost and timing.

Edited March 25, 2023 by BigTramFan

[hammertime]

26 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Yup. Look at how much better we are defensively without OEL. Even Chaos Giraffe is better now not partnered with OEL. 
of course it’s best for us if OEL would train hard and come to camp in fabulous shape and ready to compete. Just don’t know if he will. The for sure thing is 7 mil in cap space next year if we buy him out this summer. 

I'm not buying the argument Wolanen and Breezer are uprades on OEL even in his current state. 

 

OEL was very good last year especially while Hughes was out. He didn't just forget how to play hockey there is something physically wrong with him.  I think there is a good chance one of the following will happen he will return to form or find himself on LTIR I think it's a more than worth while gamble. Next year if the team takes a big step and neither of the former have happened then you consider it. 

[Alflives]

3 minutes ago, hammertime said:

I'm not buying the argument Wolanen and Breezer are uprades on OEL even in his current state. 

 

OEL was very good last year especially while Hughes was out. He didn't just forget how to play hockey there is something physically wrong with him.  I think there is a good chance one of the following will happen he will return to form or find himself on LTIR I think it's a more than worth while gamble. Next year if the team takes a big step and neither of the former have happened then you consider it. 

if OEL will commit to training hard over the summer and being in the best shape of his career to start the season then he might be able to help us. It’s a big summer for him. 

[hammertime]

32 minutes ago, BigTramFan said:

The contract is in place, so the salary pay cheques are already committed. It's just a choice as to how much you wanna pay.

 

If you don't buyout OEL you are paying:

 

$9.24m in 2023-24

$7.04m in 2024-25

$4.62m in 2025-26

$4.62m in 2026-27

(Total of $25.52m)

 

or if you buyout:

 

$2.13m for 8 years ($17m total)

 

I'd say the latter is much more palatable in terms of actual cost and timing.

it's $20,533,336 over 8 years roughly 2.7m per in terms of cap and remember in the years we want to compete its almost 5m. 

 

Patience.

[BigTramFan]

57 minutes ago, hammertime said:

it's $20,533,336 over 8 years roughly 2.7m per in terms of cap and remember in the years we want to compete its almost 5m. 

 

Patience.

@Alflives and I were talking about how much money OEL actually gets paid by our owner. We were not talking about cap hit.

[BigTramFan]

1 hour ago, hammertime said:

it's $20,533,336 over 8 years roughly 2.7m per in terms of cap and remember in the years we want to compete its almost 5m. 

 

Patience.

And are you suggesting we’re not competing for the next 2 seasons?

[48MPHSlapShot]

2 hours ago, hammertime said:

I'm not buying the argument Wolanen and Breezer are uprades on OEL even in his current state. 

 

OEL was very good last year especially while Hughes was out. He didn't just forget how to play hockey there is something physically wrong with him.  I think there is a good chance one of the following will happen he will return to form or find himself on LTIR I think it's a more than worth while gamble. Next year if the team takes a big step and neither of the former have happened then you consider it. 

He took a nasty foot injury in the offseason. Methinks that likely had something to with his poor play this year. I'm hoping with a proper offseason he'll come back better next season. 

[hammertime]

1 hour ago, BigTramFan said:

And are you suggesting we’re not competing for the next 2 seasons?

I'm suggesting that our team needs to show that they are ready to take that step. iIf they wait a year all possible out comes are varying degrees of better. 

[BigTramFan]

1 hour ago, hammertime said:

I'm suggesting that our team needs to show that they are ready to take that step. iIf they wait a year all possible out comes are varying degrees of better. 

Except the availability of young top 4 free agent Dmen is non-existent in the 2024 off season. So there is definitely a cost to waiting one year and then buying out.

 

If are going to buy out, I don't think there's a better time than now.

[BigTramFan]

6 hours ago, hammertime said:

If we give him another season not only does his buyout end a year earlier but saves a lil over 4m cap.

 

What did you mean by this?

 

Buying him out in 1 year definitely concludes his buyout a year earlier, but actually costs $3m more in cap hit.

 

See below for cap hits to VAN for different buyout timings for OEL:

 

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by BigTramFan

[Alflives]

1 hour ago, hammertime said:

I'm suggesting that our team needs to show that they are ready to take that step. iIf they wait a year all possible out comes are varying degrees of better. 

Well you don’t think the young club is showing since dumping Bo that they are ready to compete?

[Alflives]

Just now, BigTramFan said:

What did you mean by this?

 

Buying him in 1 year definitely concludes his buyout a year earier, but actually costs $3m more in cap hit.

 

See below for cap hits to VAN for different buyout timings for OEL:

 

 

Yup, our owner saves more total dollars buying out OEL this summer. 

[BigTramFan]

Out of interest (if you're interested) these are the actual salary payments that VAN would have to make by year for a buy out OEL (note: these are different to the cap hits to VAN):

 

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by BigTramFan

[DownUndaCanuck]

I'd be inclined to see what these great defensive coaches can do with OEL's game in training camp and early next season. Myers looks like a prime, new player. Whether that's because he's playing without OEL or because he's had time to acclimatize to the new system is hard to say, but if OEL could do the same, we've got some solid defencemen on board. 

 

If by around the mid point next season he's the same (or worse) sluggish OEL then we have to do something. We'll probably bury him on the bottom pairing and it'll be too expensive to trade him (a first) so we might as well buy him out next season when the payments won't be as harsh (but probably quite similar).

 

Regardless, we can't rely on an older, now injured OEL to play as our 2nd pairing LD. Look how much better our defence was even when Hronek filled that position, but we don't want to mess the poor guy around and swap him side to side during a game every game. We need to find us a solid top-4 LD, luckily there's plenty in the free agency and they won't cost us ridiculous money. If by some miracle OEL comes ready to play next year and is solid for us, fantastic, we suddenly have a playoff-worthy defence. 

 

UFA - Hronek

Hughes - Myers

OEL - Burroughs

Rathbone

 

Seems like an expensive defence but to be fair, the UFA will cost us 5-6M, Hronek is still so cheap at 4.6M, I know OEL and Myers are a combined 13M but Burroughs is peanuts and surely one of those guys is going to spend some time on the season on LTIR, paving the way for a very cheap Rathbone. I know most good playoff teams have around 25-28M in cap space allocated to their defence so it's certainly on the pricier side (Boston have 30M for 7 guys), but I think it's worth it - you pay the mistake of overpaying Myers and OEL but at the end of the day if it's only a couple of mil here or there, it's not as bad as we make it out to be. Meanwhile, we've got one of the cheapest best goalies in the league who's playing like a 9-10M guy so you take your wins and losses across the board.

 

We've got extremely expensive, over-priced wingers who are very replaceable so I'd focus on moving them around and go into the next season with a hunked up overloaded D instead.

[spook007]

16 hours ago, hammertime said:

I don't think we should buy out OEL this year. I would rather them clear cap other ways Brock Boeser, Tyler Myers. There is still a chance OEL"s foot heals up and he can skate again at a high level. Also if it doesn't I feel like that would be grounds for him to fail his physical and be put on LTIR. 
 

If we give him another season not only does his buyout end a year earlier but saves a lil over 4m cap. I don't think we are a contender next year I think this team needs to show that they are ready to take that step before you take the poison pill. 

 

Yeah fair enough...

The question is if we wait, are we in danger of running out the low pay contract our stars are on just now. In 2 years time we may not be able to afford Kuz, Hronek, EP and the supporting cast. 
Definitely two ways to look at it, and it'll be very interesting to see which road, JR/PA takes...